BENTONVILLE — Downtown will lose one of its iconic businesses when 2013 comes to a close.
Gene Wolf, owner of Gene’s Barber Shop at 111A W. Central Ave., has sold the building containing his business. Wolf will retire from cutting hair and the shop will close Tuesday.
Wolf bought the shop in 1994. Before that it had been the Mayhall Barber Shop, owned by brothers John and Carl Mayhall. The Mayhalls opened the shop in its current location in 1969.
Clovis Hance, another barber who has worked there since 1997, is moving to Charlie’s Barber Shop at 401 S. Main St., just a few blocks from Gene’s.
Gene’s Barber Shop has three barber chairs and a small television at one end of the room. It’s decorated with sports memorabilia, some of which relates to the Bentonville Tigers.
Wolf, 64, has cut hair for 46 years. He followed his father’s footsteps into the business. A native of northern Wisconsin, he moved to Bella Vista because he had visited some friends here and found it appealing. He found out about the Mayhalls’ shop and paid a visit.
“The rest was history,” he said.
Wolf said he feels it’s time to retire. Health issues have played a part in that decision, he said.
Wolf sold the building, which included another business tenant on the first floor as well as some apartment space, to Dalwarr, which lists a Bentonville post office box as its address. The new owner couldn't be reached for comment. The building sold for $800,000, according to a deed filed Nov. 6 with the Benton County Circuit Clerk.
Daniel Hintz, former director of Downtown Bentonville Inc., said one of the key aspects of a successful downtown area is having a wide array of services, such as a barber shop, within walking distance of the area’s residents.
“Gene’s has been around for a long time,” Hintz said. “There continue to be other barber shops in the area, but certainly this is an end of a particular era. It’s a very storied location. There’s a lot of history in that location.”
Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, was among the shop’s regular customers before he died in 1992.
Wolf has had customers as young as 6 months and as old as 102 years.
“Each and every one of them is important,” Wolf said. “They all have their own character and personality, and getting to know all of them and their little quirks, it’s a phenomenal thing.”
A haircut generally makes people feel better about themselves, he said. Most people will find a shop they feel comfortable with and stick with it.
“There are going to be some people who walk into your business and won’t like it for one reason or another. Then there are others who will think, I like it. They’re going to be loyal,” he said.
Galen Havner has been going to Gene’s for about 15 years. Havner’s father, now deceased, used to go to Gene’s, too.
“My dad used to time how long it took to leave his house, get a haircut and get back, and he always liked he could do it in under 15 minutes,” Havner said.
Havner, director of human resources for the Bentonville School District, said he’s always gotten a good haircut from Wolf.
“Never had any surprises,” he said.
Wolf declined to discuss any special memories from his career, though he did mention a couple of occasions when it appeared one of his customers was having a heart attack.
“Thank God both of them lived and kept coming back,” he said. “They still do.”